For several years the Horse Show has provided a platform for the Bahrain royal family – guilty of violently suppressing pro-democracy protests at home – by inviting them as guests of honour; accepting their financial support; displaying Bahrain signage; and naming events after members of the Bahrain royal family, no questions asked. Photographs of the King of Bahrain sat alongside the Queen at the event are trumpeted both within and outside Bahrain as evidence of acceptance by the international community.… Read on ...

Trading arms with Israel makes the UK complicit in Israel’s continuing violations of human rights and international law.

On the 30th March 2018, Israel murdered 15 and injured 1,500 Palestinians, who protested the occupation and siege on Gaza.

The Israeli assault on Gaza in July-August 2014, in which 2,205 Palestinians (including 521 children) were killed, was only one example of Israel’s acts of violence against the Palestinian people. Yet UK-made weapons and military technologies continue to be sold to and used by the occupying Israeli forces.… Read on ...

Friends and colleagues of murdered Cambridge PhD student Giulio Regeni gathered to protest at the Egyptian embassy with campaigners from Amnesty International and the UCU union on 2 February, marking the second anniversary of the discovery of his body. This protest followed a vigil of around 150 people in Cambridge on the anniversary of Giulio’s disappearance.

Giulio’s friend, journalist Laurie Blair spoke at the protest:
“We, the friends of Giulio Regeni, will not forget about him.… Read on ...

If you would like to have a model letter to send you MP, can we suggest the following:

I write to express concern for the treatment of prominent UK-based Bahraini activist and Director of Advocacy at the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy (BIRD), Sayed Ahmed Alwadaei and that of his family, and urge you to sign EDM 509 to draw the government’s attention to the matter.… Read on ...

We, the undersigned academics and human rights activists, insist that the leaders of Russia, Iran, and the U.S. ensure that the sovereignty of Syrian borders is not breached by Turkey and that the people of Afrin in Syria, be allowed to live in peace.

Afrin, whose population is predominantly Kurdish, is one of the most stable and secure regions in Syria. With very little international aid, Afrin has taken in so many Syrian refugees in the last five years that its population has doubled to 400,000.… Read on ...

Release from the University of the West Indies – Office of Professor Hilary Beckles – Historian – Vice Chancellor

The democratic, nation-building debt the American nation owes the Caribbean, and the Haitian nation in particular that resides at its core, is not expected to be repaid but must be respected. Any nation without a nominal notion of its own making can never comprehend the forces that fashion it origins.

Haiti’s Caribbean vision illuminated America’s way out of its colonial darkness.… Read on ...